Chocóano and in nearby areas there had also been situations of collusion between Army and paramilitaries (supra para. 248 and ff.); (b) the testimony of several former members of the Armed Forces indicates that Rito Alejo del Río Rojas, Commander of the 17th Brigade, allegedly had connections to paramilitary groups (supra para. 245); (c) the confessions of several demobilized paramilitaries that were investigated and verified by the Prosecutor General’s Office, and also subjected to judicial assessment by the Eighth Criminal Court of the Bogota Special Circuit, indicate that these connections existed in the context of Operation Genesis (supra para. 245); (d) there is no record that the Prosecutor General’s Office has been able to confirm the testimony of the paramilitaries indicating the contrary; rather this Office appears to have rejected them (supra para. 266); (e) various statements of inhabitants of the region indicate that they had seen members of the Self-Defense Forces patrolling together with members of the Army, on the banks of the Salaquí River, on the days on which Operation Genesis was being implemented (supra para. 275); (f) the “dossier” on the Elmer Cárdenas Bloc prepared by the Prosecutor General’s Office, and other documents from this entity, indicate clearly that collaboration existed between that paramilitary group and the Colombian Armed Forces on the occasion of Operation Genesis (supra para. 76), and (g) a series of indications, logical inferences and circumstantial evidence can help establish the facts in this case (supra paras. 271 to 278). 280. Based on all the above, the Court concludes that, during the operations in the Cacarica River valley, acts of collaboration between members of the Armed Forces who executed Operation Genesis and the paramilitary units that were implementing “Operation Cacarica” occurred. Similarly, applying the rules of logic and sound judicial discretion, a hypothesis in which the paramilitaries would have been able to carry out “Operation Cacarica” without the collaboration, or at least the acquiescence of State agents, is unsustainable, or that this could have occurred without confrontations with units of the Armed Forces in the places in which both armed groups were present and where they must have coincided (supra para. 277). B.2.3. Alleged violation of the right to life and integrity of Marino López Mena 281. Based on the above, the Court concludes that the cruel, inhuman and degrading acts to which Marino López Mena was subjected in the village of Bijao, as well as the deprivation of his life, committed by members of paramilitary groups, can be attributed to the State owing to the acquiescence or collaboration that agents of the Armed Forces provided to the operations of those groups, which facilitated their incursions into the communities of the Cacarica and encouraged and permitted the perpetration of this type of act. Consequently, the State is responsible for having failed to comply with its obligation to prevent violations and to protect the rights to life and to personal integrity of Marino López recognized in Articles 4(1), 5(1) and 5(2) of the Convention, as well as to investigate the facts effectively, in relation to the general obligation of guarantee recognized in Article 1(1) of this instrument. 282. Regarding the arguments of the representatives concerning the presumed violation of Articles 1, 6 and 8 of the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture, the Court will not rule in this regard because it finds that the facts have been analyzed sufficiently and the violations conceptualized under the rights to life and to personal integrity of Marino López, in the terms of Articles 4(1), 5(1) and 5(2) of the American Convention, in relation to Article 1(1) of this instrument. B.2.4. Alleged violation of the right of the Afro-descendant communities of the Cacarica not to be forcibly displaced 283. Regarding the forced displacement of the Cacarica communities, the Court notes that two distinct, but interrelated, legal issues have been raised that must be decided separately. The first refers to the State’s alleged responsibility for the displacement of the inhabitants of 97